CONTENT WARNING: This is part dark fantasy, part writing exercise and wholly fictional. It depicts non-consensual sex, dominance and violence within a very disturbing relationship, by characters whose eventual wellbeing cannot be assured. If these are things that would distress you to read about, even as fiction, please don’t go any further with this blogpost. Always take care of yourselves and each other.

Word is sent to the door of the concubine house. “Lily. He’s asked for Lily”

Chatter fades until the only sounds in the courtyard are the soft splashing of the fountain and the chattering of birds among the palm fronds. The other girls are wincing and lowering their eyes, torn between relief at their own reprieve and sympathy for the chosen one. As she walks among them, bathed, oiled, scented and ready for their King, she smiles secretly to herself.

They don’t know. He doesn’t know. No-one but Lily understands Lily. She keeps her nature locked away behind an impassive mask and presents to him only what she wishes him to see. No-one would guess from her careful grace and bowed head that she was anything but well-trained and diligent, ready to submerge her own responses to please her King and Master. Already, her skin is tingling in anticipation of his cruelty, her cunt hot and wet ready for her service to him tonight.

As she leaves, the other girls whisper among themselves. They admire her stoicism; many of them have had their own wounds dressed after visiting the royal chambers. Lily can take so much more they marvel, Lily never cries. They are grateful to her for sparing them and mildly resentful of the equinamity with which she does so.

Lily is quietly amused by their attitude.

In the silken opulence of his bedroom, the King awaits the woman who alternately intoxicates and infuriates him. Tonight he must know. Tonight he will flay open her mask and discover her soul, gouge the secret from her, crack her facade or crush her in the process. A glance at the array of implements on the velvet-draped table by the bed and his cock begins to swell, the possibilities of the paddles, clamps, lashes and canes bloom in his imagination alongside those of the ropes, the chains and the candles. In his mind’s eye, he choreographs the exploration he is about to undertake; almost hearing the crack of palm on flesh and the hissing of the bamboo switch, imagining her admission of surrender mingling with the clink of chain.

Oh yes, it will be tonight.

The door to the bedchamber door opens without ceremony. There she is, accompanied by his most trusted guards. One reaches up and unfastens Lily’s cloak, bending to gather up the whispering black silk as it falls to the ground, He can barely disguise the longing her sleek brown curves have provoked in him but he knows that to openly covet what belongs to the King is death.

The guards leave and she is alone with her owner. She stands before him, head bowed and hands clasped, silent and still as he rises and walks over to her.

“Raise your head” he commands. She keeps her eyes lowered, tilting her chin to present her face to him. If she would only look him in the eye, he might see beyond and into her mind but he knows from experience that ordering her to make eye contact will produce the opposite effect; all he can see is obedience. She’s too clever to show him a glimpse of her unguarded self, he is too accustomed to cowed compliance to be able to trust that he would recognise collusion.

He swings his hand and slaps her hard across the cheek, watching her expression closely as she staggers. She’ll take much more before he’s through; and for now she is resolutely impassive.

He binds her hands behind her and orders her to kneel. As he enters her mouth there is nothing to be seen in her eyes but limpid calm.

Lily’s attention is focused on the slide of skin against tongue, the pressure at the back of her throat with each thrust, the tautness in her scalp as he guides her head onto him with handfuls of hair. He’s fucking her mouth roughly and fast, choking her with his cock, one hand on top of her head, the other cupping her skull, pressing her face into his flesh until he feels her hitch and gag. The scented oils with which she earlier anointed herself will disguise how wet she is becoming.

He hauls her to her feet and pushes her to the bed where the ropes are coiled and ready. He’s going to beat her, then fuck her, then beat her even harder. He’s going to raise red welts on her buttocks and bruises around her throat. The lash marks across her breasts will match in number those on her soft thighs and for every stroke of his hips, he’ll pull her hair harder. It’s going to take a long time and he must pace himself to match his final orgasm to her breaking point, should he find it.

Lily is tied, spread-eagled and facing upwards. Ropes around her wrists, elbows, ankles, thighs and throat hold her in place. The harder she struggles, the tighter her bonds become, chafing and cutting into her skin.

Lily struggles harder.

He has the heel of one hand jammed against her clit, the other wields the cat ‘o nine tails with vigour. His expression is intent, curious, tinged with incredulity as the whore beneath him goes through the motions of showing fear, pain, humiliation, resistance. He doesn’t believe a second of it. But he doesn’t know for sure.

She’s showing him what she thinks he wants to see, he knows this. Her every breathless cry rouses the savage within him, every flinch makes his hand ache to land harder.

Bending over the couch beside the bed, Lily’s jaws ache from holding them apart for his cock, and stinging slaps have left handprints blooming in a dozen places. He holds her arms behind her back, twisting them higher with every jolt of his body against hers. If he were seeking only his own pleasure, he would allow himself to give in to the sensation of her soft skin and wet cunt, fill her full of his come and make her lick every last drop from his cock. Would send her back to the concubine house and allow himself to be lulled to sleep, hypnotised by her wide-eyed shock, soothed with the lullaby of her muffled screams, drugged into satisfaction by her tears of pain. Tonight though, he has other ambitions.

She grips him within her as they taught her in the training house, rolls her hips in the approved manner, arches her back to open herself to him hungrily. In her more detached moments, Lily sometimes wonders whether there is any limit to her appetite for his cruelty. She suspects that any such limit which exists, does so only in a dark, mindless eternity which she has no desire to reach.

Part of him feels sadness at the prospect. An end to this quest will inevitably bring disappointment to him, whether Lily shows herself to be simply a creature of more endurance than the others or whether she is made of some entirely different material. How will he feel if he finds – as he believes he will – that she truly shares his dark joy in the harsh treatment he inflicts upon her? Will she no longer hold any mystery and therefore interest for him? Will the knowledge that her suffering is only skin-deep kill the urge in him to seek its limits? Perhaps tonight is not the night for an answer after all. And yet…

As he presses his glans against her anus, hauling on the rope wound around her throat to drag her back onto him, Lily is glad he cannot see her face. He would surely notice the flicker of ecstasy that this rough penetration has allowed to escape. There would be no mistaking her glazed, heavy-lidded expression of welcome, no matter how she furrowed her brow or bit her lip. She cannot afford to be unmasked, cannot risk either his wrath at her deception or his disdain at a confession of pleasure.

He pounds into her without mercy or control, taking his gratification along with her breath. Sweat glistens on her lithe flanks and rolls from her tensed muscles, her heavy breasts slapping together with each swing, each of the livid marks on her skin burning its own intensifier in the fire of agony and delight that consumes her body. He is close to orgasm now, his ragged breathing harshening, his clutching hands clawing at her. No matter how hard he has tried tonight, he has provoked from her no more than the formulaic whimpers and hisses of pain, the anticipated struggles and well-schooled acceptance of his mastery. If this were any other woman, the pleasure in that alone would have been enough.

To his resignation and her relief, he will not pillage answers from her tonight. It will be at least a week – maybe two – before he resumes his siege. A long wait for Lily, with only her memories and the insipid attentions of her juniors in the concubine house to comfort her. She leaves him spent and sprawled against his pillows, sways silently away under the watchful eyes of the guards.